Blade Strangers free update out now, full details

Blade Strangers’ free update is now live, Nicalis has confirmed. The crossover fighting title is celebrating its first anniversary with new characters, upgraded graphics, and many other improvements.

Below are the full details:

The free Blade Strangers update introduces three new playable characters: adventurer Aban Hawkins (the main protagonist from 1001 Spikes), mystery girl Piaa (the most memorable of the “girlfriend” characters designed by Studio Saizensen founder Toshinobu Kondo for the PlayStation® game Doki Doki Poyacchio) and Summer Kawase, an alternate version of Umihara Kawase with different clothes and different moves. Each character comes with their own new stage and background music theme.

Along with the new characters, stages and music, the free update includes higher-resolution character graphics and numerous gameplay modifications. Fighting-game fans will notice many changes to the speed, timing, damage and/or range of certain attacks and maneuvers, all of which were made in the interests of improving gameplay and character balance while attempting to preserve existing combo functionality.